Next week is quite a busy one for FTSE 100 (FTSE: ^FTSE - news) ex-dividend dates, and it pays to plan ahead if you want to buy in time to be eligible for a firm's payment -- or if you're hoping for a bargain price drop when the time has passed.
The FTSE 100's current average dividend yield is around 3.1%, and we have three companies coming up next week that are well spread around that figure. The following three will go ex-dividend on Wednesday 17 April:
BAE
BAE Systems (LSE: BA.L - news) will go ex-dividend on Wednesday with respect to its final dividend of 11.7p per share, as announced on 21 February. Although underlying earnings per share fell a little, to 38.9p from the previous year's 39.7p, the firm lifted its total payment by 4% to 19.5p per share, and reiterated its policy of maintaining future dividends at a sustainable cover of around two times underlying earnings.
The total dividend of 19.5p per share represents a yield of 5% on the current share price of 385p, with the final payment alone providing 3%.
ARM
Wednesday is ex-dividend day for ARM Holdings (LSE: ARM.L - news) , too. The chip designer is not exactly known as a cash cow when it comes to dividends, but it did announce a 2.83p per share final dividend on 5 February for an annual total of 4.5p. Even if that does only provide a yield of half a percent on today's share price of 879p, it is up 29% on the previous year.
A further rise of around 15%, to about 5.2p per share, is currently forecast for the year to December 2013.
Fresnillo (Other OTC: FNLPF - news)
And somewhere in between BAE and ARM in terms of yield comes gold and silver miner Fresnillo , also with the same ex-dividend date. This time it relates to a final dividend of 42.4 cents per share. Added to September's interim payment of 15.5 cents, that brings the total for the year to 57.9 cents per share -- and that's a yield of around 2.8% on today's share price of 1,335p, at current exchange rates.
That share price has slumped, though, having lost a third of its value since last November (Xetra: A0Z24E - news) 's levels of around the 2,000p mark.
Further company comment can be found at www.fool.co.uk.
> Alan does not own any shares mentioned in this article.
